“Lillian is humming to herself, stretched out on top of my bookcase like she doesn’t mind the heat, and of course she doesn’t. Even when she was alive, she could never seem to get warm. The tune she’s humming is thin and tight with anxiety. It’s the opposite of carefree.”

“I can’t live in a world where she is not in my life, it’s not even an option. She told me that she doesn’t want to go back to how she was before we met, alone and shut off from the world. She likes how alive and free she feels now that she’s with me.”

“But this girl...she doesn’t feel pointless. She’s real and she’s beautiful and she fits perfectly when she’s in my arms. She makes me want to feel.”

“She frowns for a second. I don’t think she even realizes she’s doing it.Damn, I love that! She reacts to me even when she doesn’t want to.”

“Elaina Miles doesn’t have cancer. She doesn’t have kids. She doesn’t have a past. She doesn’t have a future. Elaina Miles has the present and she holds on to him as tightly as he holds on to her”

“She doesn’t belong to one of my boys, she’s fuckin’ mine.”